Personal pronouns, gender, equality, etc.

MacMacMac Notice, though, that many European languages assign a gender to EVERY noun. And some (most?) require an article in front of every noun, so the article is likewise gendered. So why don't we hear about gender sensitivity from France, Spain, Italy? Perhaps it's because they know how to speak and write properly in their own language.

I'm native Italian and familiar with few European languages. Currently I'm living in France and beforehand in few other European countries.

Your explanation of the English language usage corresponds to what I've learned and experienced on a daily basis. Anyway, I'm not a native English speaker, so I'm just conveying my experience here.

You're also correct in stating that every noun in Italian, French and Spanish are gendered and so are their relative articles which are also mandatory.

Interesting enough, the genders are often inverted among differences romance languages. What is masculine in Italian may well be feminin in Spanish or French and likewise.

Unfortunately, I've witnessed few occasions when politicians tried to propose gender changes of few "sensitive words" according to the mood of the time. The result sounded so awkward and occasionally hilarious that was quickly forgotten and buried into oblivion.

Picotin Unfortunately, I've witnessed few occasions when politicians tried to propose gender changes of few "sensitive words" according to the mood of the time. The result sounded so awkward and occasionally hilarious that was quickly forgotten and buried into oblivion.

😄 Here in Denmark, back in the early 1980's, I believe, there was an attempt from the political left to create a neutral form meaning both "he" and "she". In Danish "he" is "han", and "she" is "hun". The proposed word was "høn" (which has a vowel sound not normally found in English). That created a lot of comic relief for a couple of months, and most probably today nobody even remembers it.

QuasiUnaFantasia Here in Denmark, back in the early 1980's, I believe, there was an attempt from the political left to create a neutral form meaning both "he" and "she".

We could use one of those in English. We only have "it" ... not to be used for people, only for inanimate objects for which gender does not exist in English.

I think there have been attempts to do so, but none has gained traction.

MacMacMac Exactly. They or them are plural terms. More than one. You can’t say “Where is Tim? They went to the store?’ I would ask, “who else accompanied Tim?”

CyberGene There are also legal complications with the gender notion and the choice. For example here in Bulgaria the retirement age for women is lower than for men.

So you are still discriminating against women ending their career prematurely increasing the pay gap?

Deleted
Well, I’m also wondering why that is. I’ll have to research it. But from a statistical point of view women live longer than men (here and I guess everywhere) and it’s odd why they would retire earlier. Not sure who decided it and why.

Deleted So you are still discriminating against women ending their career prematurely increasing the pay gap?

When you say "you" are discriminating, are you implying that CG is somehow responsible for the law in Bulgaria?
I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
Rather "they" are responsible ... (whoever "they" are). 🙂

MacMacMac Do you know someone who uses the proper words? If so, HE is right.

That would be my preference too, however you are making various assumptions. For example, there are some people who do not recognize themselves as either male or female and they like to be addressed with a non-gender specific way. My preference would have been that they invented a new word for that, but instead they picked the singular they (pardon the pun).

This may all sound silly in this casual conversation, but it is all serious stuff. My employer offers "pronoun training" and one can get in troubles for being disrespectful if not outright harassing others when using the wrong pronoun after being asked to do otherwise. So please excuse people who use the singular "they" in this forum. Or report them to the good ole grammar police after the moderator will institute it 🤣

Good for you that you retired!

MacMacMac When you say "you" are discriminating, are you implying that CG is somehow responsible for the law in Bulgaria?

That's the plural you which includes any citizen with the right to vote obviously. ;-)

Tim went to the market. He bought stuff.

Mary went to the market. She bought stuff.

Someone went to the market. They bought stuff.

"They" has been used this way since the 1300s.

"He" has also been used for indeterminate gender, as well as the recent "he/she".

An Old English speaker would probably be horrified to hear inanimate objects referred to as "it" in the modern language, ignoring the grammatical gender of nouns (as they knew it). As for ditching cases…

Of course a lot of this has to do with incompatibilities in Germanic and French grammatical systems. That's why English has such simple grammar, but a huge vocabulary and all kinds of spellings.

The sociopolitical and linguistic arguments really don't have anything to do with each other.

CyberGene

In Italy also the retirement age is different among genders. In France, Belgium and the Netherlands not AFAIK.

The Italian government (They 😉) still pays penalties to the European Commission on annual basis because of the different treatment.

I believe the reason being that women should be rewarded for the time spent caring for the family. A burden still largely on the female parents unfortunately.

Paradoxically, women are "rewarded" when their children are already grown adult and no longer relying on the parents, but not helped with some other forms of support on their earlier years, when they are actually child caring and often forced to gave up their careers. Go figure…

Johnstaf

Johnstaf Of course a lot of this has to do with incompatibilities in Germanic and French grammatical systems. That's why English has such simple grammar, but a huge vocabulary and all kinds of spellings.

The sociopolitical and linguistic arguments really don't have anything to

That's a very good point. I didn't known about such usage of "They" in classical English.

They can live in the their make pretend world all they want, just don’t expect me to play make pretend world.

Picotin Unfortunately, I've witnessed few occasions when politicians tried to propose gender changes of few "sensitive words" according to the mood of the time. The result sounded so awkward and occasionally hilarious that was quickly forgotten and buried into oblivion.

Unfortunately in Italy, some years ago, a certain political woman managed to FORCE some lexical additions to the italian vocabulary just to accomodate some (very irrelevant in number) feminist currents (of which that political figure was the spokesperson) which were unhappy that some nouns indicating institutional offices were declined only in their masculine versions for centuries. IMHO politicians HAVE NOT THE RIGHT TO FORCE new grammar rules and lexical additions. The language has to change "naturally", not in a forced way by a few "illuminated" politicians. There are many serious problem to talk about in a Parliament. Unnecessary lexical additions to the vocabulary are not among them.

CyberGene I always found it odd that sex has any legal basis at all. Eye colour used to be on passports here, but it was removed in the '80s as an irrelevance. Imagine if you were required to be categorised according to race…

Eye color is still on our ID-s. I believe it helps for additional security besides the picture because it describes a feature you can’t change without wearing colored contact lenses.

People here lived for 45 years in communism (I lived in it only for 10, so my memories are not relevant) and the ideology tried to establish this notion of women being equal to men and working equally in power jobs as miners, in heavy metallurgy, etc. Needless to say women from my mom’s generation hated it and are strongly against feminism. One needs to experience state imposed gender equality to realize how wrong and artificial it is. Communism was so wrong on every possible aspect here, we still suffer from the consequences, 30 years after its fall. It really amazes me that the West is now going in a similar direction. The same West that helped us get rid of communism. Go figure…

magicpiano

That woman happened to be the Italian Parliament President of the time.

Her campaign was nothing more than entrainment in my humble opinion. Although I respect the idea of changing the article according to the gender in question, but please, not the title!

Human languages are not fixed in stone and they evolves as the civilizations using them.

I just can't understand some of the most recent "evolutions" but I guess that is just the evidence that I start belonging to the past. On the other hand, the future belongs to the new generations.

Best of luck to them.

CyberGene Communism was so wrong on every possible aspect here, we still suffer from the consequences, 30 years after its fall. It really amazes me that the West is now going in a similar direction. The same West that helped us get rid of communism. Go figure…

Yeah, tell that to the goofball millennials here. They won't believe you. 🙁
"It's not regular socialism that we want. It's democratic socialism."
OK. So it's not murder. It's suicide. Much better! Uh-huh.

CyberGene I'm all for equal opportunities, but I don't think anyone wants to force people into positions they don't want. I wouldn't want my son or daughter (or whatever they want to call themselves) to have different opportunities in life simply because of what's recorded on their birth cert. Make gender irrelevant (for those that don't want it to be relevant) and let people make their own choices. I don't think anyone wants more than that.

If a woman wants to be a miner she should have that choice.

Johnstaf I'm all for equal opportunities,

Yes. But it doesn't work if you have expectations that are plain stupid. Several months ago i've read an article about a transgender woman which broke several records on the womens division simply because she is still biologically a male. The other contesters felt cheated and tried to get her disqualified because a (real) female athlete couldn't reach these records. I mean, what did they expected will happen? Equal opportunities doesn't mean everyone is equal.

Here in Germany, there are plenty of examples of how "everyone is equal" doesn't work. In 9 out of 10 cases of divorce, the father does not get custody of his children. It doesn't matter how good he is at his job, how much time he has or how badly the mother treats her children.

95% of the kindergarten teachers here are women. This is mainly because men are suspected of being potential pedophiles. Of course there are examples where this is the case, but you can't generalize.

The feminists here denounce the inequality between men and women in working life, but all they ever do is complain that top positions in big companies are mostly held by men. There is no complaint about too few women construction workers, or garbage collectors, sewer workers, or any other job that is physically demanding and does not pay excessively.

Here, this is called a "double standard."

This is one of many facets we are confronted with since the internet is in every pocket. Thanks to smartphones and social media, it has become very easy to enter filter bubbles and develop the most absurd thoughts. You only need enough people who think the same and out comes, for example, the nonsense with the social genders.

That would not have been possible without the Internet.